Theology, Morality and Adam Smith

Jordan J. Ballor is a theologian with doctoral degrees in Reformation history from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and moral theology from Calvin Theological Seminary, USA. He is director of research at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy and executive editor of the Journal of Religion, Culture & Democracy. He is also associate director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research and the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics. Cornelis van der Kooi is professor emeritus in systematic theology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and has published widely in the field of systematic theology and on the theology and impact of (neo)calvinism. Currently he serves as distinguished scholar at the Erasmus Economics and Theology Institute (EETI) at the Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Introduction: Exploring Adam Smith’s Theological Contexts, Sources, and Significance 1. Bourgeois Culture: Understanding Adam Smith’s Moral Horizon 2. A Survey of Adam Smith’s Theological Sources 3. Calvin and Smith on Providence, Morality, Virtues, and Human Flourishing 4. Self-love and Its Discontents: Trajectories in Reformed Moral Philosophy and Theology before Adam Smith 5. Smith and the Scholastic Tradition on Markets and Their Moral Rationale 6. Adam Smith’s Seventeenth-Century French Theological Sources 7. Smith and Enlightened Augustinianism 8. Adam Smith’s Theological Hinterland 9. Butler and Smith’s Ethical and Theological Framing of Commerce 10. Adam Smith’s Theory of the Moral Vicegerents of God 11. Adam Smith’s Theology and Virtues as Conditions for the Potential of Free-Market Economies to Contribute to Human Flourishing 12. The Adam Smith Problem Theologically Reconsidered 13. Smith on Moral Agency, and the Moral Significance of Context